Site Mobile Navigation

The Abbey Theater's Fiach Mac Conghail Takes a Cue From Yeats

DUBLIN, March 24 - The Abbey Theater was already collapsing with debt when the government appointed Fiach Mac Conghail to be its next director early last year. Three days after he started in May as director-designate, a six-month temporary position, the financial picture went from bad to worse. Ireland's mismanaged national theater discovered that its convoluted accounting systems had misplaced an additional million euros ($1.2 million).

The result was that the departing director, Ben Barnes, was forced into resigning and that Mr. Mac Conghail was suddenly promoted to the top job, six months ahead of schedule. So it's understandable that Mr. Mac Conghail, a 41-year-old Dubliner, has had a very busy year.

First he had to straighten out the budget. He revamped the Abbey's antiquated legal structure, persuaded the Irish government to clear its 4-million-euro ($4.9 million) deficit, and won the largest grant ever awarded by the government's Arts Council, for 25.7 million euros ($31.3 million) over three years. And he is planning for the theater's long-overdue move to a new building, with construction in Dublin's dock area due to begin in 2008.

With that out of the way, Mr. Mac Conghail, one of Ireland's most prominent arts producers, feels free to tackle what he sees as his principal task: reorienting the Abbey on its original mission as a politically relevant national theater.

"What differentiates the Abbey is that it has a responsibility to interrogate the political status quo," Mr. Mac Conghail (his name is pronounced FEE-ick mack-en-EEL) said in a recent interview.

That responsibility, he explained, is the legacy of the theater's creation in 1904, in the midst of the Celtic Revival and Irish nationalist movements, when Ireland was on the cusp of finally achieving independence from Britain. The Abbey, founded by William Butler Yeats, provided a space for those movements' political and cultural expressions.

"The Abbey was an intellectual debating chamber for revolutionaries," he said. "There's no theater in the world that can replicate that."

He added, "It's what Yeats called offering a mirror to its citizens."

With a modest spring program, Mr. Mac Conghail has begun to illustrate what he sees in that mirror. He has commissioned new work that tackles life in contemporary Ireland, and departing from previous practices, he handed those plays over to young directors who previously only dreamed of working on the Abbey's main stage. He appointed Conor McPherson, who had said he felt snubbed by the Abbey, as the theater's 2006 playwright in residence. And directly thumbing his nose at tradition, he declared at least a temporary ban on revivals of classic plays by Sean O'Casey and John Millington Synge, which have long been the theater's staple fare.

"The notion that the Abbey has to continually and centrally interrogate a repertoire is gone, and I think that's a good thing," Mr. Mac Conghail said. "I'm not saying goodbye to it, but there has to be an equilibrium."

So far, the productions under his stewardship have featured protagonists like sleazy property developers, Eastern European immigrants and bewildered thirtysomethings. The current production is a version of "The Bacchae" set in Baghdad, with clear political overtones. Coming plays in the Abbey studio include works by the young playwrights Mark O'Rowe and Joe Penhall, and "True West" by Sam Shepard, a writer Mr. Mac Conghail plans to revisit repeatedly in the next few years.

Reviews have been as mixed as they were under Mr. Mac Conghail's predecessor. But Mr. Mac Conghail, with his earthy, good-humored style, has certainly grabbed the country's attention, and the affections of people in Ireland's theater world.

"A healthy theater community needs a really, really strong national theater," said Enda Walsh, the Irish playwright whose acclaimed "Bedbound" was produced in New York in 2003. "We all know where Fiach comes from, and a lot of us were given our first breaks by Fiach. So there's a lot of good will for him, and he knows it."

Mr. Walsh has never had a play produced at the Abbey. He has lived in London for several years and has expressed frustration with the small theater scene in Ireland. But Mr. Mac Conghail's appointment may change that, he said.

Where Mr. Mac Conghail and his shoulder-length hair come from is a bohemian-arty household, where children were given Gaelic names and learned Gaelic as their first language. He studied politics and economics at Trinity College in Dublin, and worked as an associate producer on the 1990 version of "Dancing at Lughnasa," which won a Tony Award for best play. He earned his reputation among independent theater companies as the director of Project Arts Center, an avant-garde performance space, for seven years in the 1990's, when he orchestrated its move to a purpose-built venue in the Temple Bar district.

He maintains that he has an anti-authoritarian streak. "I'm from the generation where I need to bite the hand that feeds me," Mr. Mac Conghail said. But he is famous for his deft ability to work with the powers that be. In recent years he has positioned himself as the Irish government's first choice when the country needed international representation -- curating contributions to the Venice and São Paulo biennials, running the cultural program for Ireland's presidency of the European Union, and serving as adviser to the culture minister.

Now, though, he is happily ensconced in his top-floor office in the Abbey's shabby building in the center of Dublin, and looking forward to moving into a swankier one when the theater's move to a new facility is completed. He insists that he won't seek reappointment when his term expires, because five years will be enough for him to accomplish what he has set out to do.

"The first three years are about consolidation and preparation for growth," he said. "And the final two to three will be about soaring."